Knowledge is power – especially when it comes to digitization. That’s why we want to regularly convey methods, tools and know-how around digitization and innovation to our readers with the blog series #DIGITALLEARNING. We start with the topic “agile work”.

New challenges

Throughout the world, companies are increasingly being challenged by rapidly changing customer needs and market conditions. The rapid technological development of the past few years is, of course, a major driver here. The project management and the way in which companies work is changing accordingly. Increasing competition, individualized products, shorter product development cycles – the new challenges go far beyond the boundaries of traditional project management. Classical working models are slow to respond to constantly changing requirements. Wrong planning and delays, setbacks and repetitions of entire project phases cost a lot of time and money.

If companies want to master the challenges of the digital world and remain fit for the future, they have to react. In order to be able to react faster and more precisely to customer requirements and changes in the market, innovative companies are increasingly relying on agility. But what exactly does “agile” mean?

On the trail of agility

The term “agile” originates from software development. Agile development methods do not provide for “requirement specifications”. Instead, only a few basic functionalities are determined at the beginning of the development process. This allows the project to start immediately, without any delay. New or adapted requirements can be defined at any time during the active project implementation phase. For example, if it is determined that the software must have different functions than previously assumed, the iterative approach of the agile development method allows the experiences from the current project to flow into the further development process and to adapt quickly and successfully to the changed circumstances. Thus, it is only developed what is actually useful.

Agile work and agile culture

Currently, agile work has established itself as a very successful working method in all areas of project management. The advantages are obvious: Agility enables greater adaptability to customer and market requirements, close integration of the customer into the project progress as well as more transparency and knowledge transfer.

However, agile working involves more than just one method of working. Switching to a more efficient, faster and adaptable way of working also requires an innovative, new corporate culture that encourages continuous development, flexibility, trust and appreciation. The cultural change that accompanies the implementation of agile working methods must not be underestimated and is to be understood as one of the key success factors of the company in the digital world.

Agile Methods

There are different agile methods with their own advantages and disadvantages. As part of the #DIGITALLEARNING series, we will present and examine the most important ones at regular intervals. The launch next week will probably be the best-known framework in the field of agile working – SCRUM.